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I bottled it, says lost gourmet

A SWISS gourmet who went missing during a tour of the world's best restaurants earlier this year has attributed his mysterious disappearance to an identity crisis.

Pascal Henry, a 46-year-old motorbike courier whose ambition was to eat in every Michelin three-starred restaurant in the world, said in his first comments since reappearing that he could not handle the media publicity around his global gastronomic adventure.

"I did not know any more where I was or who I was," he told a Swiss newspaper. "You want to know if I had suicidal thoughts? The answer is yes."

Henry had planned to visit all 68 three-star restaurants in 68 days, a punishing schedule that would take him to nine countries.

On June 12 he had reached restaurant number 40 - El Bulli, in Spain, acclaimed as the best in the world - when he vanished after his pudding without paying the bill.